13 April 2012

We have met the enemy and he is us. We are surrounded by insurmountable opportunity*

| johnboy
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Member for Fraser Andrew Leigh has been opining in the SMH about how we can make better decisions and the dangers of too much information.

As life advice goes it’s better than most.

So there you have it. Beware of excess information. Narrow down the number of choices. Don’t look at the price tag before judging quality. Pay cash if you’re worried about overspending. Use your rational brain for small choices and your emotional side for big decisions. And remember to get by with a little help from your friends.

* Pogo the Possum

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If it’s complex, let emotions guide us.
If you need to make a choice, be join the sheeple rather than be an individual.

This does much to explain why stock markets and world economies are so messed up.

“Conversely, he makes the case that for complex items (e.g. which car to buy), there are too many dimensions to the problem for our rational brain to cope with. In such instances, we shouldn’t be afraid to let our emotions choose.”

And that exactly why we see blonde middle aged women and balding middle age men driving around solo in Porshe Cayennes that average 10 miles to the gallon.

“Andrew Leigh is the federal member for Fraser.”

And possibly has totalitarian tendancies.

Call my cynical, but when a pollie publishes something that illustrates how doctors having access to an MRI machine results in misdiagnosis. I can’t help but think that the hospitals should watch their budgets.

Somehow, I don’t see Andrew Leigh as a person who makes many decisions purely on emotion. Remember he did the trial on whether he should use Twitter, carefully noting his mood and achievements. And he never has poetry on his reading lists, even of the most cerebral kind. Or even a novel, that I can remember. (Not being A. Leigh, I’m not going to check that before posting! Crazy!)

Couldn’t agree more.

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